A contemporary operating system, such as Microsoft Corporation's Windows® 98 operating system, provides many different ways to navigate between and within applications on a computer. For example, existing user interfaces utilize double clicks, right clicks, menu pulls, OK buttons, close boxes, and the like to open and close applications, or dialog boxes within applications. If more than one application is opened, a user may be presented with multiple windows, which may become complex and is often difficult to understand for many users, particularly a novice user.
Another problem that users encounter is that it is often difficult to find documents that the user had previously accessed, or find the same point (e.g., menu or dialog) within an application that the user had previously reached. A closed document and/or application suddenly disappears from the screen, requiring that a user know its location or some other way to return to the application and/or document at a later time. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that so many documents and/or applications are launched from different locations. For example, links to applications and documents may be presented on the user's desktop. Also, the Start button provides navigation via a pop-up menu to applications and recent documents, and a task bar provides an icon for each currently running application. The various options for accessing recent documents and applications may not be logical for a user, which may make finding a particular recent document or application difficult and confusing.
Users also often have difficulty understanding how to navigate to commands within an application. For example, existing applications utilize icons on tool bars, menu pulls, dialog boxes, and the like to provide access to commands that are available for the application. A user often finds the large number of icons and pull-down menu options to be overwhelming. Many times, the symbols used on the icons are often not that suggestive of the function of the command. Moreover, for drop-down menus and dialog boxes, the commands are typically presented as one or more words that are often not sufficiently descriptive of the function provided by the command. To discover the function (or find the appropriate command button), a user may need to consult help information. The help information is provided in a separate dialog box and/or window, and finding the appropriate help topic about the command in question may be difficult. Navigating through all of these options may be complex, and a user may not be able to access, or may not even be aware of, a variety of commands available in an application.